Scientists have discovered why some people may be protected from harmful parasitic worms naturally while others cannot in what could lead to new therapies for up to one billion people worldwide.

Scientists say they have found a way to turn body fat into a better type of fat that burns off calories and weight. The US Johns Hopkins team made the breakthrough in rats but believe the same could be done in humans, offering the hope of a new way to treat obesity.

Imagine a battlefield medic or emergency medical technician providing first aid with a special wad of cottony glass fibers that simultaneously slows bleeding, fights bacteria (and other sources of infection), stimulates the body's natural healing mechanisms, resists scarring, and—because it is quickly absorbed by surrounding tissue — may never have to be removed in follow-up care. Or, imagine diabetics with hard-to-heal wounds finding a source of relief from the battle against infections and limb amputation.

A gene therapy approach using a protein called CD59, or protectin, shows promise in slowing the signs of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a new in vivo study by researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Stronger and tougher body armor to shield the chest, abdomen and back may be just what soldiers fighting in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars need to better protect their brains from mild injuries tied to so-called “shell shock,” results of a Johns Hopkins study in mice suggests.

Cotinine, a compound derived from tobacco, reduced plaques associated with dementia and prevented memory loss in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, a study led by researchers at Bay Pines VA Healthcare System and the University of South Florida found.

A new study in rats is shedding light on how sleep-deprived lifestyles might impair functioning without people realizing it. The more rats are sleep-deprived, the more some of their neurons take catnaps — with consequent declines in task performance.

Gene therapy that uses a tiny benign virus to take a gene to the rods and cones of the eye's retina (the light-sensing organ) prevented blindness in mice with a genetic blinding syndrome, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in an online report of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have grown human veins in a laboratory, in a breakthrough that could revolutionise heart bypass surgeryThe news comes from research in which scientists developed a method for using human muscle tissue to create human blood vessels in the laboratory.

In the first animal model of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), developed by Dr. Udai Pandey, Assistant Professor of Genetics at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, Dr. Pandey's lab has found in fruit flies that blocking the abnormal movement of a protein made by a mutated gene called FUS also blocks the disease process.

It's a conflict with no resolution in sight. On one side, scientists who experiment on animals. On the other, animal rights activists who believe that no animal should ever be harmed. But how far can activists go before their right to free speech threatens the scientists and their work?

Chronic inhalation of polluted air appears to activate a protein that triggers the release of white blood cells, setting off events that lead to widespread inflammation, according to new researchin an animal model.

Adult mice engineered to have more newborn neurons in their brain memory hub excelled at accurately discriminating between similar experiences — an ability that declines with normal aging and in some anxiety disorders. Boosting such neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus also produced antidepressant-like effects when combined with exercise, in the study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

OHSU's research to combat the world's obesity epidemic, which is being conducted at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center, continues to receive extensive coverage in the press. In the past few weeks, obesity research has been highlighted in The New York Times, and on ABC's Nightline

Scientists have used stem cells to grow a rudimentary eye in the laboratory in a landmark study that raises the prospect of creating tissues to treat blindness and tease apart how diseases can destroy eyesight.